The UK trade unions are noticably absent from the general strikes taking place across Europe today, which tells us a lot about the present state of our movement.

The little-England Stalinists and nationalists that infest sections of the UK “left” will, no doubt, try to present the strikes as part of some Europe-wide campaign to get out of the Euro and/or the EU. This is, in fact, not the case.

John Palmer, long-time campaigner for sanity on the left when it comes to the EU, makes the following point in the comments over at the open thread at comrade Dave’s:

“This action, coordinated by the ETUC, is limited but will nonetheless have an impact on the growing debate about the self defeating nature of the disastrous current austerity of EU governments. It should be followed by more extensive coordinated action – including Britain which is suffering from the same crisis. It should be noted that the demonstrators are NOT calling for exit from the Euro – let alone the European Union – but they are demanding a radical change in EU coordinated economic policy towards sustainable growth – a “Green New Deal.” Anyone who would like to see in detail what this would imply might care to check out the Euro-Memorandum network of pro-European socialist and Green economists – http://www.euromemo.eu/euromemorandum/euromemorandum_2012/index.html – and its programme of specific and concrete demands for a new strategy.”